Tag Archives: screen on the green

Summertime in the city–the daylight lasts longer, the outfits get shorter and the city has so many things to offer you outdoors. We’ve rounded up the outdoor movies in the DC area and put them into one comprehensive guide. Break out the popcorn and blankets and get ready to see what films are rolling this summer.

Washington, DC:

Screen on the GreenWhere: On the National Mall, between 7th and 12th streets, NWWhen: Begins at sunset
Movie Lineup:
Monday, July 16th: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Wednesday, July 25th: It Happened One Night
Monday, July 30th: From Here to Eternity
Monday, August 6th: Psycho

Did anyone else see the large meteors that fell over DC, last night? I was at Screen on the Green last night watching 12 Angry Men (always awesome) and I saw two flaming chunks of rock fall over the Capitol. And I’m not talking about dainty shooting stars. These were large enough and close enough to be seen despite the city’s light pollution and definitely caught the attention of most of the movie goers. You could even see the rocks beginning to break up and shed chunks of debris. They kind of looked like fireworks right before the explode. Did anyone else see them, or am I crazy?

The overbearing heat and swamp like humidity are expected when hanging out on the Mall in late July. It’s part of DC’s charm. The sudden downpours that send hundreds scrambling for partial cover are also par for the DC weather course. But when you wrangle up your good friends, pack up a little picnic dinner, grab a big blanket to spread out on and bring along your favorite adult beverage hidden in an ambiguous plastic container that could possibly (and hopefully) be mistaken for a water bottle by Park Police, you tend to get your hopes up about a glorious night under the stars watching a classic film from the past on the super-jumbo screen. Unfortunately, last night was not the Screen on the Green’s finest moment.

Screen on the Green doesn’t start back up until July 12, but in the meantime you can catch a great movie this Wednesday on the Mall. The National Capital Planning Commission is sponsoring a screening of “Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City” on the Mall on Wednesday at 8:30. This documentary about the father of urban planning is sure to draw out history buffs, planners, and anyone else who loved ‘Devil in the White City‘. And it’s the perfect place to watch a documentary about the man who helped design the National Mall as we know it. So grab a blanket and pack a picnic and I’ll see you out there Wednesday night!

Well, Screen on the Green is set to retire for another season. Let’s hope that it comes back again next year. Tonight’s showing will be the James Dean classic “Rebel Without a Cause.” If you haven’t been out to SCOTG yet, definitely brave the balmy evening and join the cool kids on the mall. In my opinion, “On the Waterfront” was this year’s best cinematic offering from our friends at HBO and WB, but “Rebel Without a Cause” is a close second. Get there.

For the third movie in its ressurection run, Screen on the Green will feature On the Waterfront this evening. For those of you not in the loop, On the Waterfront is arguably one of the greatest movies of all time. It won 8 Academy Awards and features Marlon Brando in his prime (ladies). The weather is supposed to be beautiful tonight and I highly recommend that you get to the mall to enjoy this film with a thousand of your closest friends. The feature should start around 8:30.

In case you didn’t already have this marked down on your calendar, Screen on the Green makes its triumphant return tonight with a showing of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The screen will be set up on the Mall between 4th and 7th streets (you can’t miss it) and the showing will start at sunset. There is a 30% chance of rain, so pray that it holds off till after the movie.

The Kennedy Center is working on a plan to run a variation on “Screen on the Green” according to a source at the National Journal’s Hotline. They reported today in their Wake Up Call! section (behind the paywall) that Kennedy Center officials are looking for a big sponsor to sign on before they’ll commit and there’s discussions already in progress with several possibles. The location is apparently not graven in stone, but it might be on the terrace overlooking the Potomac, which would be lovely.

This is the perfect PR opportunity to win the hearts and minds of DC for those companies currently on the “Dead To Me” list. That’s right Pepco, with your always-expensive power bills, you could warm not only our homes, but our hearts. Your newfound love of twitter doesn’t absolve you, I want my movies! All that money you made off of us this winter? Give some back, okay? Comcast, I don’t think anything will ever make me love you after our wireless internet “incident”, but I might be more friendly if you saved Screen on the Green. Lerner family, you owe us big time. After withholding rent on the stadium from the city, building the team HQ building RIGHT in the Capitol sight-line, and trying to get DC to pay for the team uniforms, I think you’re due for a little good PR.

I don’t know about you, but I’d begrudgingly do the Comcast/Pepco/Lerner family dance if it meant I could watch my movies on the mall again. What company do you think should step up to win back our hearts?

HBO has cancelled the long-running Screen on the Green program for 2009, according to a representative from HBO’s consumer affairs department.

Reader TJ tipped us that we should look into this; someone at the National Mall permits desk told him HBO was no longer sponsoring the event. A call to the hotline at 877-262-5866 still yielded the old 2008 schedule, but if you stay on the line all the way through you can get connected to consumer affairs. Representative Melana confirmed for me that the program had been cancelled. No word on if it will return.